


Conversations with Luna

by evansentranced



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Luna is awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-09
Updated: 2006-10-09
Packaged: 2017-10-30 12:10:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/331611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evansentranced/pseuds/evansentranced
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Conversations. With Luna. She has a theory that her mother helped her with, and is willing to share... makes Harry feel better, anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conversations with Luna

Luna sometimes used to wonder why the trees died every year.

Why their blood slowly leaked into the leaves, staining them red, before the leaves seemed unable to bear it anymore, falling to the ground and becoming stiff so that they crunched when Luna stepped on them.

She wondered why the trees suffered so, but grass didn't. She would sit in the fields and compare them, wondering if perhaps the grass knew some secret that the trees didn't, and if so, why didn't it share?

It wasn't immortality, she knew, because she'd seen the grass die as well. As a child, she spent most of her days sitting in those fields, swimming in the nearby pond, and running through the trees. She'd seen the grass fade and be covered over by the white of the winter, but it didn't bleed like the trees. It did not have to amputate itself and watch the little bits blow about and slowly decompose at its feet. The grass did not have to stand tall in its suffering and freeze all winter. It slept under a blanket of dirt and snow, safe from the storms until the frigid cold faded away and it could fight its way to the surface again.

The trees knew the secret to coming back when the cold was gone, Luna would note as she sat during early spring and watched the leaves grow, but theirs was a painful death, a total rebirth.

The grass had it easy, compared to the trees, and Luna thought she might understand why grass was for walking on, if it was so low as to allow the trees to suffer in such a way. There was a short time when she would stomp spitefully whenever she walked in the grass, glaring at it with angry knowledge in her eyes, thinking, 'I know your secret. Why do you have to be so cruel to the trees?'

Her mother saw her at this one day, trampling the grass with a mutinous glare on her face, and asked her about it.

"Luna," she asked. "Why are you stomping about like that? What has the grass done to you?"

"Nothing, mum," Luna said with one last reproachful glance at the greenery. "But look at how it treats the trees!"

Luna's mother sat down in the grass and asked, "What do you mean, darling?"

So Luna sat down with her and explained all about the grass and it's wicked, secret-keeping ways.

"Love, the grass is not keeping any secrets from the trees." Luna's mother said when she had finished.

Luna looked at her mother with a furrowed brow. "It isn't?" she asked hopefully.

"No, it isn't. The reason the trees have to go through so much to prepare for winter is because they have so many to support."

"What do you mean, mum?"

Luna's mother looked around her, eyes alighting on the Burrow in the distance. "The trees are like the Weasleys, love. And the grass is like old Mr. Perkins."

"What?"

"Well, dear," she said, pulling Luna into her lap. "The trees have all those leaves to feed, just like the Weasleys have their many children."

"Oh," Luna understood now, sort of. "But there's a lot of grass too!"

Luna's mother plucked a strand of grass from the ground and showed it to Luna, who examined it carefully. "Yes, but the grass really only has to worry about itself. It can get its food all on its own, so it can take care of itself better."

"I get it. So the leaves are like the tree's children, and the grass lives all alone, with only the wrackspurts to keep it company, like Daddy said."

Luna's mother laughed lightly. "Something like that, dear, yes."

"But mum," Luna looked up at her mother with wide, surprised eyes. "The Weasleys have had all the same children for as long as I can remember. They don't kill their babies when winter comes!"

"No, darling, but the trees cannot protect their babies as well as the Weasleys can. They don't have anywhere to keep the leaves safe, so they have to sacrifice the leaves so that the main tree doesn't die, so it can make more leaves later."

"Oh," Luna said sadly, thinking now that this was much more complicated than she'd thought. "So there's no secret the grass could share that would help the trees?"

"No, Luna," her mother responded, hugging her close. "After all, you wouldn't blame Mr. Perkins for not showing Mr. Weasley how to take care of his children, would you?"

Luna giggled. "No mum, Mr. Perkins doesn't like children very much, I don't think. He wasn't happy at all when I told him what Daddy said about the wrackspurts."

Luna's mother laughed in spite of herself. "No, I don't suppose he was."

"Mum?" Luna asked after they had laughed together for a bit. "Does the tree  _want_ to sacrifice its leaves?"

"Oh, no, honey. The tree loves its leaves very much." Her mother stared off at the Burrow again. "But sometimes, people will sacrifice themselves for their family, like the leaves sacrifice themselves for the tree."

Luna stayed quiet for a moment, watching the Burrow along with her mother and wondering what she saw that Luna was missing. Her mother had always seen more than Luna could understand when it came to certain things, and Luna could only hope that one day, her mother could explain some of it to her.

Maybe someday she would be able to see it too.

***

In the years that followed, Luna recalled that conversation many times.

She remembered it at her mother's funeral, as clearly as she remembered the way her mother had shielded her from the potion's explosion, taking the brunt of it herself.

She remembered it again when she spent the summer at Grimmauld Place, when she finally learned what it was her mother had seen when she had looked at the Burrow that day. Luna learned about the first set of twins Molly Weasley had ever known and lost, and watched her worry about the second.

She remembered it as Harry confided in her about his parents, about his godfather, even about Dumbledore, how they had saved him with their sacrifices, and thought of sharing her mother's explanation with him.

"Maybe they thought of you as their tree," Luna said to him abstractedly, thinking about her mother's words. Harry appeared confused and more than a little distressed.

"What?"

"When I was little, my mother explained this to me," Luna said, and watched his eyes soften considerably. "I was angry at the grass. I thought it was hiding a secret from the trees, letting them suffer and loose all their leaves."

Harry seemed calmer, but still confused. "What does this have to do with…"

"My mother told me I was wrong," she explained. "She told me the tree wouldn't survive if the leaves didn't sacrifice themselves, and if the tree didn't survive, then the leaves would never even have a chance in the first place."

Harry stared at her. "So…people think of me as their tree?"

"It certainly seems so," Luna said distantly, remembering the feel of her mother's arms as she held her in the grass that day. "Your family did, and your friends do, at least. Without you, where would we be? I know Ron and Hermione are happier whenever you're around. Ginny lights up whenever you're near."

Harry smiled sadly. "But what if I don't want them to sacrifice themselves for me?"

"I don't think you can stop them from playing the leaf," Luna said thoughtfully. "But maybe you can convince them that it's not winter."

Harry screwed up his face, thinking it through, before finally asking, "So if there's no reason for them to think they need to be…leaves in the winter…no war, that's the only way to keep them from sacrificing themselves for me?"

"I suppose so," Luna agreed. Now that she thought of it, Harry was rather like a tree. Any of his leaves could fall off, or even be plucked off on purpose, but it would take a powerful wizard to destroy the tree itself. Or a muggle with an axe, Luna thought, then realized that wasn't where she'd meant to take that train of thought at all.

"So I'll kill Voldemort, then," Harry said resignedly. "I'll destroy all his…roots, and get rid of all his leaves, so then all I have to do is cut down the tree itself...or himself...or…yeah."

Luna smiled at him reassuringly. "I'm sure you'll be able to do it, Harry. Your leaves will be with you the whole way."

Harry looked as though he was trying to fight a smile. He lost.

Grinning, he shook his head at her and said, "You always have the strangest way of making me feel better, Luna. Thanks."


End file.
